What Are You Going To Do With Your Life?

ECHO and The Bunnymen were the first band I ever saw in concert, the Ulster Hall, 1985. I'll always hold a candle for them, which is just as well since every track on their new album What Are You Going To Do With Your Life? is a classic, lighter-waving ballad.

Remembering the release of the Bunnymen's commercially successful but quite mediocre comeback album of '97, Evergreen, I was apprehensive about listening to their latest offering. So it's a relief to be able to report that, cringeworthy as it sounds, Mac the Mouth and friends have matured with grace. The '80s guitar heroes' seventh album proper glides along with lots of space and classic subtle arrangements.

Listening to the album's highlight, the Fun Lovin' Criminals-assisted 'Get In The Car', I can smell the dodgy hairspray of my goth days and taste the cheap cider consumed ad nauseum with my fellow black-clad spiked-hair sidekicks. "Get in the car, taking a ride/Looking for Stars, Looking for Satellites", is the 1999 interpretation of, "First I'm gonna make it/then I'm gonna break it till it falls apart', from 1985's 'Bring On The Dancing Horses'.

That distinctive McCulloch voice is still the Bunnymen's most effective instrument, but I'm curious to see what will happen when they take this album on tour. I fear audiences will yearn for the crooning sounds of 'Killing Moon' and 'Won't You Come On Down To My Rescue'.

Passionate and gorgeous, but not quite Crocodiles.